Digital Commons Network^™

The Impact Of Media On Attitudes Toward Women And Sexual Attitudes In Emerging Adults, Melissa Patrick

HIM 1990-2015

The purpose of this research was to explore the relationship between exposure to media variables and emerging adults' attitudes toward women and sex. Previous research indicated that exposure to media variables can influence the thoughts, behaviors, and attitudes of those exposed. The current study examined how age at exposure to media variables impacted attitudes about sex and attitudes toward women. Six-hundred and ninety four college students were given a questionnaire containing an attitudes toward women scale, a sexual attitudes scale, and a media viewing questionnaire. ANOVAS and linear regressions were performed on the data and results for the study were …

The Risks And Benefits Of Running Barefoot Or In Minimalist Shoes: A Systematic Review, Kyle Perkins

HIM 1990-2015

The popularity of running barefoot or in minimalist shoes has notably increased in the last decade due to claims of injury prevention, enhanced running efficiency, and improved performance when compared to running in shoes (shod). A systematic review of the literature was performed using the Downs and Black checklist to assess the methodological quality of studies proposing risks or benefits between running barefoot, shod, or in minimalist shoes. The databases Ovid MEDLINE, SPORTDiscus, and CINAHL were searched using keywords or "Booleans" including: "Barefoot", "Running" and "Minimalist," exclusively. All included articles were obtained from peer reviewed journals in the English language …

The Relationship Between The Big Five Personality Traits And Paranormal Belief, Autumn Perdue

HIM 1990-2015

Studies into paranormal belief and the effects thereof have been gaining more attention. This study looked at the Big Five Personality Traits and how they could relate to belief in the paranormal, specifically which personality traits, if any, lended themselves to paranormal belief more than others. Four hundred forty-six college-age participants completed a Big Five survey as well as the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale. Results from a multiple regression showed a significant relationship between gender, religion, level of education achieved by the participant's mother, extraversion, and neuroticism (emotional stability) in relation to paranormal belief. Implications and elaboration of findings are …

The Effects Of Stress On Distance Perception, Monica Rosen

HIM 1990-2015

Although there has been a great deal of research on binocular distance perception (Foley, 1980; Gogel, 1977), a number of questions remain unexplored. One such question involves how our ability to perceive distances is influenced by fitness and stress (internal and external). Previous research has shown that kinesthetic stress (via backpack weight) influences a person’s ability to accurately guess distances (Proffitt, Bhalla, Gossweiler, & Midgett, 2003). This research did not only attempt to replicate previous work, but also extend it by exploring potential interactions between fitness level and mental stress on distance perception, a combination that is often encountered by …

Assessing The Second Born: The Role Of Competitiveness And Extrinsic Motivation In Birth Order, Melissa D. Thye

HIM 1990-2015

Birth order may represent one of the most influential environmental factors that directly impacts personality development and even life outcomes. The present study sought to expand upon the existing literature by examining the motivational and dispositional differences between first born and second born individuals. Research indicates that first born children show significantly higher levels of academic achievement and lifelong attainment due to experiencing higher parental expectations as well as increased financial support. As a result, the second born child is likely to compare him/herself with the first born sibling and develop a greater level of competitiveness. Additionally, this desire to …

The Effect Of Lovestyle On Consumer Behavior: Attracting A Partner And Forming A Relationship, Fonda Yeh

HIM 1990-2015

Erotic stimuli in the consumer's environment can lead to affective responses, which produce traits such as erotophobia-erotophilia and lovestyle. Individuals can be classified as one of six main lovestyles, as well as erotophilic (having a positive view towards sexual behaviors) or erotophobic (having a negative view towards sexual behaviors). A person's style of loving may affect which products he or she perceives to be helpful in attracting potential sexual and relationship partners. I investigated this possible correlation by examining (1) whether each lovestyle is erotophilic or erotophobic and (2) which products erotophilic individuals are more likely to buy as opposed …

A Review Of Communication Tools And Techniques For Successful Ict Projects, Ernest Mnkandla

The African Journal of Information Systems

Practitioners have repeatedly mentioned that projects that lack effective communication are doomed to fail. Project communications management involves the generation, collection, and storage of information within a project. Project communication therefore provides vital ingredients for the go-no-go decisions in a project through the effective selection of the minimum essential things that can be done to share the collected information among the stakeholders. A fast growing way to manage software development projects is agile project management, whose focus is balancing between continuous releases of quality deliverables and frequently sharing project progress information. In this editorial, we advocate for research on the …

Construction Law, Frank O. Brown Jr.

Mercer Law Review

This Article focuses on noteworthy construction law opinions by Georgia appellate courts between June 1, 2012 and May 31, 2013, and one case, Estate of Pitts v. City of Atlanta, decided on remand in July 2013. The Article briefly discusses the Georgia False Claims Act,' which became effective July 1, 2012.

Economic Impact Of Medical Education Expansion In Nevada: Economic Impact Assessment And Recommended Approach, Tripp Umbach

Lincy Institute Reports and Briefs

In May 2013, The Lincy Institute1 commissioned, Tripp Umbach2 to prepare an economic impact report to show the value of a new, four-year allopathic medical school (hereinafter referred to as the new four-year medical school) in Las Vegas. To accomplish this task, Tripp Umbach evaluated multiple medical school development models in order to recommend the optimal model that would provide the greatest economic impact to the state of Nevada and the Las Vegas Metropolitan area.

Five Justices, Section 4, And Three Ways Forward In Voting Rights, Kareem Crayton, Jane Junn

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Directing Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years In An Educational Theatre Environment, Philip J. Gill

Theses

This thesis explores the process of directing Jason Robert Brown’s musical The Last Five Years in an educational theatre setting. The author, Philip J. Gill, documents his approach to staging this complex, two-character show, which presents a unique narrative structure—one character moves forward in time while the other moves backward. Gill discusses his directorial vision, emphasizing the importance of time, musical transitions, and abstract staging to enhance the storytelling. He details the audition and casting process, highlighting challenges such as selecting actors who could meet the vocal and emotional demands of the roles.

The thesis also examines the collaboration with …

Playing The Prince Of Cats: A Retrospective On The Process Of Being Tybalt In Romeo And Juliet, Andrew J. Weber

Theses

Acting as the major antagonist for the first half of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Tybalt Capulet provides a unique challenge for an actor. The character's rage easily threatens to be static unless the actor can find appropriate justifications for his actions. Facing difficulty with limited textual background information, a performer undertaking the role must develop Tybalt's sense of self by drawing not only from Shakespeare's work, but also from the setting chosen by the director. This thesis examines how the character of Tybalt was developed to fit an adaptation of the play set during the Hatfield and McCoy feud …

Introduction To Pasture Ecology, Edward Barrow Rayburn

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

WVU-Extension fact sheet

Addressing Trans-Boundary Challenges Through Collaboration: How Organizations "Harmonize" Actions And Decisions Across Problem Landscapes, Rachel Fleishman

Dissertations - ALL

Collaborative governance- or collaboration- has become increasingly important for the design and implementation of public policy in the United States. This dissertation explores concrete and unique policy-related benefits emerging from collaboration, and the processes by which they emerge.

Collaboration is defined broadly as "any interaction between two or more organizations undertaken with the intention to cooperate." This definition is applied in the context of water quality management, where the physical nature of watersheds and the lack of regulatory authority available to policy-makers leads to a variety of collaborative arrangements.

A survey of literatures addressing collaboration from different theoretical angles revealed …

Precision Measurement Of The Lambda_B Baryon Lifetime, Bilas Kanti Pal

Dissertations - ALL

The ratio of the Lambda_b baryon lifetime to that of the B0 meson is measured using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.0 /fb collected with the LHCb detector using pp collisions at the LHC. The Lambda_b baryon is observed in the decay mode Lambda_b ->J/psi p K-, while the B0 meson decay used is the well known B0->J/psi pi+ K- mode, where the pi+K- mass is consistent with that of the K*0(892) meson. The ratio of lifetimes is measured to be 0.971+/-0.007+/-0.005, in agreement with theoretical expectations based on the heavy quark expansion. Using previous determinations …

Design And Synthesis Of Solid State Materials Constructed From Transition Metals And Diphosphonate Or Organoarsonate Ligands, Tiffany Marie Smith

Dissertations - ALL

This work encompasses detailed investigations of the synthesis and structures of transition metal complexes which contain xylyldiphosphonate or organoarsonate ligands. The xylyldiphosphonate families of materials which were examined were the metal(II) series of Cu, Ni, Co, Mn, Cd and Zn, with an addition of an organo-nitrogen chelate. With success in these families of materials, a secondary metal of vanadium or molybdenum was added to these metal(II) systems to increase the complexity of the structure produced. For the organoarsonate series of compounds, the chemistry of the Mo/metal(II)/organoarsonate/organo-nitrogen chelate family of materials was expanded upon and preliminary studies were conducted into the …

Analysis Of Waveguides Filled With Uniaxial Media And Metamaterials For Filter Applications Using The Mode Matching Method, Luke Murphy

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation will explore the analysis of waveguide discontinuities for the purpose of dielectric filled waveguide filter analysis and design. The filling media studied are uniaxial media and uniaxial media embedded with metamaterial. A literary search provides numerous methods and numerical techniques for analyzing waveguide class problems, but ultimately the Mode Matching Method (MMM) is chosen as the numerical analysis technique for this dissertation.

An overview of waveguide theory and its application to the Mode Matching Method are presented. The Mode Matching Method is then used to analyze simple cases to confirm the numerical accuracy. Once accuracy is confirmed, Mode …

Retrieval Of Free Space Radiation Patterns Through Measured Data In A Non-Anechoic Environment, Weixin Zhao

Dissertations - ALL

Antenna pattern measurements are usually carried out in an anechoic chamber. However, a good anechoic chamber is very expensive to construct. Previous research has attempted to compensate for the effects of extraneous fields measured in a non-anechoic environment to obtain a free space pattern that would be measured in an anechoic chamber. Existing compensation techniques are like the Test Zone Field compensation method, the Fast-Fourier-Transform-based method, the Matrix Pencil method, and the Antenna Pattern Comparison technique.

This work illustrates and extends a deconvolution methodology which allows the antenna measurement under a non-anechoic test environment and retrieves the free space radiation …

I Ain't Do Nothing: The Social And Academic Experiences Of Black Males In A Dismantled School, Don Sawyer

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation is an ethnographic study of the experiences of Black eighth grade males attending an urban middle school dismantled in the midst of mandated educational reform in a Central New York school district. Some of the students were the victims of repeated school closures and were left behind because of a lack of space in other schools as a result of efforts to disperse students across the district. These students are part of a group that attends classes in a small section of their former building that has been converted into a high school. To gain insight into the …

Predictors Of Postsecondary Education Attendance For Youth With Learning Disabilities, Jennifer Lorene Koehler

Dissertations - ALL

Given the increasing number of students with learning disabilities attending postsecondary educational institutions, it is essential to determine the factors which may play a predictive role in postsecondary education in order to inform educational practices and interventions prior to high school graduation. As such, the primary aim of the current study was to examine which variables may hold predictive value for postsecondary education attendance for students with learning disabilities. This study analyzed the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2) in an attempt to identify the variables that predicted the likelihood that youth with disabilities would attend more postsecondary education. A total …

Experimental Investigation Of The Active Flow Control On A Two-Dimensional Wind Turbine Airfoil, Guannan Wang

Dissertations - ALL

Wind turbine blades experience unsteady aerodynamic loading under various off-design conditions. The fatigue loading reduces the operational time of the wind turbine hence leads to an increase in the Cost of Energy (CoE) of the wind power. In this study, active flow control with unsteady blowing actuators was applied to a two-dimensional wind turbine airfoil to alleviate the unsteady aerodynamic loading and improve the aerodynamic performance, particularly under large scale freestream disturbances. A low speed, open jet aeroacoustic wind tunnel was designed and constructed based on an existing anechoic chamber for this investigation. A theoretical analysis based on a Blade …

Centralizing Ambiguity: Simone De Beauvoir And A Twenty-First Century Ethics, Kristen Oganowski

Dissertations - ALL

In this dissertation, I examine the relevance of Simone de Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity to contemporary feminist thought on the self, autonomy, and ethics. More specifically, I argue that this text has the potential to make unique contributions to these areas of contemporary feminist philosophy.

Recombinant Expression, Purification, And Characterization Of An Hiv-1 Tat-Human Cyclin T1 Chimera, Collin Lesley Fischer

Dissertations - ALL

Efficient transcription of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) requires the interaction of the viral protein Tat with the trans-activation response (TAR) stem-loop of the long-terminal repeat (LTR) portion of nascent viral RNA. The production of viable transcripts is enhanced dramatically by the interaction of HIV-1 Tat with the host protein human Cyclin T1. Interaction with hCycT1 remodels Tat protein contributing a single cysteine residue that is critical to the formation of the second of two zinc fingers (Zn2). Here we suggest that it is the presence of this critical cysteine residue and not the presence of arginine residues …

Measurement And Monitoring Of The Performance Of Highway Investment, Stephanie R. Everett, Yingge Xiong, Jon D. Fricker, Kumares C. Sinha

JTRP Technical Reports

In response to the federal SAFETEA-LU requirements, nearly all state departments of transportation (DOTs) have started to use performance measurement at some point in the planning and/or programming process. Although these performance measures are routinely monitored, they are generally completed during the project development process on a project-by-project basis for anticipated future conditions. No state has a fully developed post-implementation tool to monitor and evaluate capital investment programs at a system (statewide) level. The primary objective of this study is to establish a systematic, comprehensive, and robust tool for the Indiana DOT (INDOT) to routinely perform an ex-post facto appraisal …

Best Practices For Roundabouts On State Highways, Christopher M. Day, Alexander M. Hainen, Darcy M. Bullock

JTRP Technical Reports

This report presents a series of research findings from an investigation into roundabout operations. This includes a comparison of several analysis tools for estimating roundabout performance (the Highway Capacity Manual, SIDRA, ARCADY, VISSIM, and SimTraffic); a measurement of rejected headways for the purpose of analyzing critical headway; a review of roundabout lighting practices; and a review of considerations for roundabout site selection. It was found that VISSIM and SIDRA provided the most reliable predictions of roundabout performance for the test site analyzed herein. Additionally, the critical headways measured at this site were significantly lower (at a median value of 2.2 …

Barriers To Membership In The American Dental Hygienists’ Association In The State Of Georgia, Brandy Henderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Professional associations must have a significant level of membership to be effective. Georgia membership is increasingly low; therefore, ADHA cannot represent dental hygienists’ interests. This study determined factors that caused dental hygienists to continue to forgo membership in the ADHA. Several theoretical views of professional membership were considered. The sample was acquired from an unbiased systematic sampling of 50% (3,270) of registered dental hygienists and a convenience sampling of ADHA nonmembers at 2 continuing education seminars in Georgia. Data collection procedures included an electronic cover letter, consent form, and survey via Survey Monkey or hard copies for seminars. Three hundred …

Anesthetic Considerations For Phantom Limb Pain, Robert B. Kari

Theses and Dissertations

Title: Anesthetic Considerations for Phantom Limb Pain

Background: Phantom limb pain (PLP) is a phenomenon where pain develops or is perceived in a body part that has been removed. With the prevalence of peripheral vascular disease secondary to diabetes, amputation rates are expected to increase in the next decade. Chronic pain syndromes such as phantom limb pain are difficult to manage and treat

Purpose: The purpose of this project is to detennine if preemptive analgesia for limb amputation is effective in the prevention of PLP

Process: A comprehensive review of the literature was perfonned using multiple …

The Three-Step Test Revisited: How To Use The Test’S Flexibility In National Copyright Law, Christophe Geiger, Daniel Gervais, Martin Senftleben

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

The first version of the three-step test emerged at the 1967 Stockholm Conference for the Revision of the Berne Convention. With the inclusion of versions of the test in the TRIPS Agreement of April 1994, the two WIPO “Internet” treaties of December 1996, the more recent Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances of June 24, 2012, and the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled (VIP Treaty) of June 27, 2013, the test has taken on the central function of allowing and enabling tailor-made solutions at the national level. …

Assessing And Building Resilience In Mentally Ill Adult Inpatients, Lorri J. Mostad

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Parental Role In Educating Adolescents About Alcohol And Chemical Substances: What Is The Best Evidence?, Patricia L. Dumonceaux

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.